SPEEDMASTER, THE CLOCK THAT CAME TO THE MOON

Undoubtedly, the Omega Speedmaster watch is the most important in our history because ut is the watch that reached the Moon.

On July 21, 1969, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin stepped on the Moon. One of them had a Speedmaster, but how did an Omega watch get into the Apollo 11 mission?

It all started in the 60s when two Nasa systems engineers bought chronographs from prestigious firms in Houston, Texas, including Rolex, Longine, Hamilton and, of course, Omega.

They looked for durable chronographs, accurate, manual adjustment and that could withstand extreme temperatures. They submitted the watches to very hard tests that ended in 1965, winning the Omega Speedmaster and qualifying it, officially by NASA, as the watch to be used in all its space missions. Three months later, he gave his first spacewalk with Edward White.

But the most important expedition in history was about to happen: the man was going to reach the Moon and on his wrist there would be a Swiss watch. This decision did not like much to the American politicians who wanted that the first clock that arrived at the Moon was American. Despite the detractors, the Speedmaster was chosen for the Apollo 11 mission.

And so, in 1969, when Buzz stepped on the Moon with the watch tied to the sleeve of the space suit, he turned the Speedmaster into the Moonwatch. Amstrong had left his in the ship as support to the electronic system of the ship that had functions of timekeeping.

Currently the Buzz watch is gone. All the material used in the space expeditions is property of the American government. In 1977 he decided to exhibit it in the Smithsonian Museum and with El Paso of the time the museum has been giving some pieces to other institutions, losing some in transportation. Four Speedmaster watches from Nasa remain untouched with Buzz.

Anecdotally, it is worth mentioning what happened with one of the watches used in the Apollo 7 mission by astronaut Don Eisele. After 30 years disappeared, this year has been located by the FBI. The bassist of a rock band and lover of watches and space, Garrón Dupree, met a seller on eBay who told him the story of a man who bought a somewhat curious Speedmaster for $ 5,000. Thanks to the serial number provided, Dupree found out that the watch was one of the Omega watches that had participated in a space mission. The FBI and NASA interfered and got the man who owned the watch to return it.

After the mission that took man to the Moon, the mission where the presence of the Omega Speedmaster was most important was in Apollo 13, a mission that made the phrase "Houston, we have a problem" famous. The Speedmaster played a key role in introducing the ship into our atmosphere and landing it.

Do not miss the film that is currently on our billboard, The first man, which shows this mission and where we can see the significance that had the Speedmaster during the landing.Here's the trailer: